Metro network transport platforms must be compact, scalable, and agile to conquer the specific challenges of this key portion of the transport network. Growing and shifting traffic in the metro has triggered these challenges.

Today’s cloud-optimized metro network transport platforms “must” be:

Compact – with optimal power and performance in a form factor that meets metro operational cost targets

Scalable – to have the capacity you need when you need it to aggregate and transport multiple, high-performance services

Agile and intelligent – to dynamically reconfigure network resources to get services to your customers faster

HK Houyuan Technology Co. Ltd, a 3-year old company based in China has a line of Asterisk IP-PBXs with the super creative name of, wait for it... wait for it -- "IP PBX". Their IP PBX series include the IP PBX-01, IP PBX-02, IP PBX-04, and IP PBX-08, where the number denotes the number of FXO/FXS ports. They run uClinux and Asterisk on a 400MHz Blackfin 532 chip.

Logitech said in their February corporate report that "Some of our other peripherals product categories are experiencing significant market challenges. As the quality of PC-embedded webcams improves, we expect future sales of our PC-connected webcams in mature consumer markets to continue declining. We intend to address this market decline by enhancing our webcam product line-up to enable experiences that cannot be easily achieved with an embedded webcam and by targeting webcam applications on non-PC platforms."

Indeed standalone webcams have been declining because desktops have been replaced with laptops that usually have an embedded webcam that is "good enough" for the consumers needs. So how does Logitech diversify or differentiate from embedded webcams?

One answer is unified communications (UC) which targets businesses and not consumers.

The telyHD appliance brings powerful, affordable HD video conferencing to SMBs and larger enterprises, rivaling high-end telepresence platforms from Cisco, LifeSize, and Polycom. Further, TelyHD sports Skype integration, granting it access to perhaps the largest videoconferencing user base, which includes Skype clients running on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The Enterprise Edition enables the telyHD appliance to also join a BlueJeans meeting. I was an early beta reviewer for BlueJean's videoconferencing and HD content sharing service back in 2011 and was impressed with their service.

TMC, Systemwide Media and PKE Consulting announced an expanded expo showcase at WebRTC Conference & Expo has sold out. The event, to be held June 25-27, 2013, at Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, Ga., is focused on exploring Web-based real-time communications (WebRTC), how WebRTC is enabling true browser-to-browser communications and what that means for the technology industry. WebRTC Conference & Expo will host over 40 industry-leading exhibitors that are helping to shape this evolving market.

Although the exhibit space has sold out, attendees are welcome to come learn all about WebRTC. Companies such as Google, Tokbox, Ericsson, Mozilla, Oracle, Digium, Avaya, and others will be there.

Just click here and receive a special 50% discount using discount code WRTCTom.

According to the Guardian, the NSA has the capability of tap in to user data of Google, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and more. This is disturbing on so many levels, especially after revelation that Verizon gave the government access to over 100 million Americans' phone records. A friend suggested.

So now that P2P Skype is not as "secure" as many were led to believe, what sort of secure P2P VoIP is available? Well, there is Phil Zimmerman's Zfone Project, which Zfone uses a proprietary protocol called ZRTP.

I reviewed CertainSafe for TMC Labs to be published in TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine. Check out an early sneak peek here...

TMC Labs learned about a new product launching by TransCertain called CertainSafe that could be a game changer when it comes to cloud-based collaboration. Fortune 1000 companies and indeed even smaller companies are reluctant to put their most sensitive and confidential data in the cloud to be shared with their partners and customers. But what if you could encrypt the data in the cloud using AES256 encryption or any encryption algorithm of your choice, and combine that with “Tokenization”?

I've written about WebRTC screen sharing, but today I came across another WebRTC screen sharing solution leveraging Openfire and using WebSockets and JingleNodes (XMPP) plugins. If you're not familiar with Openfire, it's a real time collaboration (RTC) server licensed under the Open Source Apache License. It uses the only widely adopted open protocol for instant messaging, XMPP (also called Jabber).

Code as simple as this allows you to share any video device, whether it's your webcam or your screen:

The Logitech Wireless Headset H820e targets the UC space nicely, sporting an amazing 300 foot wireless range, call indicator LED to let co-workers know you're on the phone, and wideband audio. The H820e is available in mono and dual versions and I took the dual version for a spin.

After initially charging up the headset I made a test call using Skype. After putting on the headset the first thing I noticed was how well this headset seems to block out ambient noise. They did a good job with the speaker padding and it's also worth mentioning they were kind enough to put padding on the underside of the TOP of the headset so you have some cushion and comfort when the headset is on your head all day.

Nokia put up some comparison footage from the PureView 8.7MP camera of the Nokia's Lumia 928, which is rumored to be the Verizon version of the popular AT&TNokia Lumia 920. The video shows how it compares against the iPhone 5 and Samsung’s Galaxy S III when capturing video on a New York roller coaster. The results show the 928's superior color saturation, sharper focus and fewer overexposures from bright light sources than the competition. You can see how well the optical image stabilization works in the Lumia 920 by checking out this article and video.

The website also confirms rumors that it will feature 8.7 megapixel resolution and optical image stabilization, which surprisingly is identical to last year’s Lumia 920.

SIP trunking is one of the best ways for businesses to save money on telecom costs, but it's not without its pitfalls, including: not all SIP trunking providers are created equal, latency / QoS issues, SLAs, and more. If you are the decision maker trusting your critical business phone calls it's perhaps easier to choose an expensive PRI over SIP trunks because you know it will work. It's like the old adage "No one ever got fired for buying IBM", which was later adopter by Cisco. The fear of choosing a SIP trunk, even if it saves hundreds of dollars may be too much for a decision maker to put their neck on the line if voice quality issues crop up.

TMC in conjunction with Sonus Networks is putting on one-day "Putting SIP to Work" seminars across the country.